In this sector there appears, however, to have been a systematic, if superficial, examination of the dug-outs before a trench was passed. One does not hear of those surprise attacks from the rear which were so common and so fatal to the north. The examination usually took the form of a sharp summons at the mouth of the burrow, quickly followed--if there were no response--by a Mills bomb. Then, as often as not, there would crawl out of the black orifice eight or ten terrified and bleeding men, who would join the numerous small convoys trailing backwards to the rear. These prisoners were nearly all from the 110th and 111th Reserve Bavarian Regiments, and the alacrity with which they made for the rear with their hands above their heads, formed the only comic touch in a tragic day. One made a grab for a rifle. "He lived about five seconds," says the narrator. "They were thin, unshaven, and terrified," says an officer, talking of the particular batch he handled. "Most had dark hair--a very different type from the Prussians." Having overrun the German trenches, the infantry {80} were now faced with a considerable stretch of open which lay between them and the Sunken Road, leading from Fricourt to Contalmaison. Many were hit upon this perilous passage. A subsidiary line of German trenches lay in front of this road, and into this the British tumbled. The colonel of the 15th Durhams was the senior officer who had got up, and he took command at this point, rallying the weary men of all four battalions for a fresh advance. A few of the Royal Scots of the Thirty-fourth Division were found already in possession, the fringe of that body who have previously been described as making so invaluable a stand at Round Wood. At this point the 64th Brigade was found to be some distance in front of the main body of the Thirty-fourth Division on the left, and of their comrades on the right, so that they could get no farther for the moment without their flanks being badly exposed. In front through the haze they could dimly see the Crucifix which was their ultimate objective. The men had to cower low, for the bullets were coming in a continuous stream from Fricourt Farm on the right and from the woods on the left. The Sunken Road was ten or twelve feet deep at the spot, and though it was exposed at the sides, by rapid digging the men got some cover, though many dropped before they could make a shelter. Here the survivors of the advance waited for some hours, spending some of the time in ransacking the enormous thirty-foot deep dug-outs which the Germans had excavated at certain points along the side of the road. Into these the wounded were conveyed, and refreshed by the good things of life, from Seltzer-water to gold-tipped cigarettes, which were found within. {81}